Home » Health » Physicians with burnout are twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents, twice as likely to deliver sub-optimal care due to low professionalism and three times more likely to receive low satisfaction ratings from patients, finds a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine. : Health

The title of the post is a copy and paste from the third paragraph of the linked academic press release here :

A new systematic review and meta-analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine has found that physician burnout is associated with suboptimal patient care, and that physicians with burnout are twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents, twice as likely to deliver sub-optimal care to patients owing to low professionalism and three times more likely to receive low satisfaction ratings from their patients.

Findings This meta-analysis of 47 studies on 42 473 physicians found that burnout is associated with 2-fold increased odds for unsafe care, unprofessional behaviors, and low patient satisfaction. The depersonalization dimension of burnout had the strongest links with these outcomes; the association between unprofessionalism and burnout was particularly high across studies of early-career physicians.

Meaning Physician burnout is associated with suboptimal patient care and professional inefficiencies; health care organizations have a duty to jointly improve these core and complementary facets of their function.

Abstract

Importance Physician burnout has taken the form of an epidemic that may affect core domains of health care delivery, including patient safety, quality of care, and patient satisfaction. However, this evidence has not been systematically quantified.

Data Sources MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycInfo, and CINAHL databases were searched until October 22, 2017, using combinations of the key terms physicians, burnout, and patient care. Detailed standardized searches with no language restriction were undertaken. The reference lists of eligible studies and other relevant systematic reviews were hand-searched.

Study Selection Quantitative observational studies.

Data Extraction and Synthesis Two independent reviewers were involved. The main meta-analysis was followed by subgroup and sensitivity analyses. All analyses were performed using random-effects models. Formal tests for heterogeneity (I2) and publication bias were performed.

Main Outcomes and Measures The core outcomes were the quantitative associations between burnout and patient safety, professionalism, and patient satisfaction reported as odds ratios (ORs) with their 95% CIs.

Conclusions and Relevance This meta-analysis provides evidence that physician burnout may jeopardize patient care; reversal of this risk has to be viewed as a fundamental health care policy goal across the globe. Health care organizations are encouraged to invest in efforts to improve physician wellness, particularly for early-career physicians. The methods of recording patient care quality and safety outcomes require improvements to concisely capture the outcome of burnout on the performance of health care organizations.

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